The teaser image is rather creepy. ;)_________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
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Location: Canadia

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 9:05 pm Post subject:

I don't trust the speculation. With a few hours remaining before the reveal, here's what I believe:

- It will merge the Nintendo handheld and home game console in to one. There's no reason for them to be separate anymore.
- It will be a long-term system (or platform), one designed to last Nintendo the next 10 years or so, perhaps longer, with incremental upgrades. A premium hybrid gaming device, without the price tag of a premium phone.
- It *WONT* be 4k. Nintendo's primary market, oddly enough, is handheld gaming. It will be enough to provide a better 1080p device, akin to the Wii U, but optionally on-the-go.
- It *WONT* VR. VR is too cutting edge.
- It *WONT* 3DS. That was a neat gimmick, and they finally got it working correctly on the "New 3DS", but we don't need it anymore
- It *WONT* Android. Nintendo isn't the best at OS's, but what they make does work.
- It *MAY* have a Linux or BSD kernel. This isn't a very important detail. It wont change anything regarding Nintendo policies. It's just some good/stable software that runs on modern CPUs.
- It will have buttons. It will exist to live in the world between mobile and home console gaming.
- It will be powered by a modern NVidia Tegra based SOC (CPU and GPU).
- That actually means an ARM CPU, like every cellphone, tablet, and Nintendo handheld since 2001 (GBA).
- On the GPU side, hopefully that means it's something based on NVidia's "Pascal" micro-architecture, which they use in their current (2016) graphics cards and current Tegra SOC's. Pascal is NVidia's future for the next while.
- If they do use Pascal, it means bumping the specs in 3-5 years for a 4k model will be easier.
- OpenGL and/or Vulkan support. Nintendo joined the Khronos group some time ago, though I expect them to leverage NVidia for the hard work.

That said, I don't expect a system that meets my expectations above to be one that flies off the shelves. That is, unless Nintendo has 1 more thing... some new gimmick none of us are expecting. If we get the above, I expect it to do "fine" (price pending).

In my opinion, the point of the system is the long-term accumulation of their games library. Nintendo catalogue, back catalogue, and so on. It's the long game now.

I'm expecting a price of $299. $249 if they're smart. $199 would be super aggressive, but the Wii U prices vary between $199 and $299. Nintendo 3DS prices vary between $99 (2DS) and $199 (New 3DS).

The PlayStation 4 Slim and Xbox One S have set the base price of $299. The trick is that both of them are subsidising the cost with PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live subscriptions, but still, Nintendo *CAN'T* charge more than that. Otherwise, yikes.

Wild speculation: They *could* potentially start their own monthly subscription, but it *HAS* to be cheaper (both PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live now go for $60/year, i.e. ~$5/month). Nintendo does have a huge back catalogue of Virtual Console games, so that could be a decent base incentive. I was originally going to say they couldn't do it... but in hindsight I think they actually could. They've begun lightly experimenting with subscriptions, with a $5/year fee for Pokebank (42 cents /month), which is their online Pokemon storage service for the current Pokemon games. It's all going to boil down to what's offered in the service. "Online Multiplayer" like Xbox Live, that will not work. But free games, free Pokebank, and other little incentives could work.

Or they could just stick with Amiibos. I wish Amiibos did more. ;)

Anyways, there it is. My last-chance guesses at what the NX will be. And now I sleep, so I can wake up and find out what it is for real._________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:08 pm Post subject:

This may not work, but apparently this thing resembling a dev kit showed up on Reddit.

Actually, I'm a lot more optimistic than I thought I would be. I think this could actually work. It's basically a gamer's tablet, but for real this time.

See the thing is, it's not an iPad "killer". The iPad will always be the more versatile unit, but as long as it has the essential applications (email/social apps, entertainment (YouTube, Netflix), and a damn good browser), it becomes a perfectly reasonable alternative device to be carrying instead of a 7" tablet.

Quite literally, the home console on the go. You will need to plug in the detachable gaming controllers to play any serious game, but take them off and you can do all your basic tablet stuff.

It's going to have way way way less applications, and it will probably lack any sort of open stuff [emulation], but I totally expected to destroy BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone. After all, it has Nintendo's vast library of content available to it, and you're not playing on shit controls!

So anyway, this is just me making a bunch of assumptions given what I can figure out from this measly little leaked image. We will find out in a few hours how much of these assumptions I've made are actually part of Nintendo's plan. Because if they are, I'm impressed. This is ballsy. Not exactly taking on Apple and Google, but going where no other gaming console creator has gone before.

I did not think Nintendo could possibly make something again with the potential of the original Wii, but holy shit. Maybe!_________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

DiabloContributorJoined: 19 Nov 2015
Posts: 388
Location: :( :(

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 5:58 am Post subject:

Damnation. Mario showers with his clothes on. I don't think there's ever going to be a true sequel to Mario 64. Tell me if they announce one on this show though.

Do not play with your dog, do not talk to your friends, take your escapism wherever you go, stay solo. The girl is not interested in you, just in the gadget. Wait? Do not say that is not the message we are supposed to receive from the trailer?_________________0xDB

I wanted to be like "Yay, Nintendo has struck gold. It made totally sense of being so secretive about their new console" but I dont see it.

The Joycons
Dear god, I really hope that they bundle the console with a pro controller (and i hope the Switch pro feels a little more robust and less toys'r'us than the previous ones). The only reason I would consider using the joycons is if the pro is broken. Hell, how is someone over 7 not going to dwarf the joycon?

The "tablet"
Will people actually use it outdoors? I dont think parents are going to let kids take it out. Pretty sure Nintendo will charge you more or less as much as the full console to replace it.

Skyrim
Why try to hype the console with a 5 year old game when the developer doesn't even aknowledge that they currently are developing anything for the machine?

New Mario game
I was confused when they showed a new Mario game when Miyamoto said only a month or so ago that they hadn't started develop one yet.

Where is all the other Nintendo IP's?
Seriously. I know it's the first peek on the machine but they need to show what their studios must have been working on for ages now. I mean, not everyone employed on nintendo can have been working on the new Zelda?

The name
I prefered NX but Switch is suiting. At least it distances itself from Wii, seems to be one of the few things Nintendo learned.

No backwards compability
Its confirmed that there will be no backwards compability with the Wii consoles and that is a good thing to me. It would be such a clusterfuck with all the controllers and crap if they had that.
What they should do on the other hand is having a strong downloadable library of games from all their pre wii games.

Cartridges
Gotta say that I like that they are using cartridges.

Being quiet until next year
Apparently Nintendo isn't going to talk about the console further until next year. I cant figure out one reason why that isn't a dumb idea._________________My Blog | I take steroids for my bad knee. Now I can kick a smart car across the Walmart parking lot![/size]

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 5:10 pm Post subject:

Okay, after much digging, and going off leaks alongside those that were confirmed true by the video, I will say we actually have enough information to target it as a platform.

- Single Screen Experience. Polygon (seemingly) confirmed the dock is truly a dock, and has no way to receive a video over Wifi (a-la a reverse Wii U)
- No backwards compatibility. It's a brand new system, taking a brand new media, similar looking to DS/3DS media. Some people seem to care that "yay Nintendo is back to using cartridges", but frankly, flash memory eclipsed optical media in speed and capacity years ago. This is non-news.
- By design, Nintendo DS, 3DS, and Wii U games can't work on the system. They will need to be ported (adapted) to work instead (or port a more normal port).
- JoyCon's *ARE* motion controllers (a-la Wii). This was neglected in the trailer so not damage the message of it being a "portable home console".
- JoyCon's should totally have be named the "Switch Blades", am-I-rite. ;)
- The Tablet *DOES* have a capacitive touch screen. However, unlike Nintendo's prior touch-enabled devices, having touch support in your game shouldn't be required (as it was on DS).
- Screen is somewhere between 6" and 6.5". I've seen 2 different attempts at estimating the size, 1 via the thumbstick, the other via the face buttons (which get screwed up when you realize the buttons on the Pro Controller are larger than usual). What people should be doing is doing the math based on the the USB connectors on the dock, seen very clearly at the beginning of the teaser video.
- It's still unknown if the JoyCon's have L/R buttons in the locking mechanism (they have a side button at the very least, but both sides are TBD)
- Though the JoyCons are small, it's been mentioned that they're actually not much smaller then a NES controller. The NES controller didn't really feel small, but you never had to push L/R buttons either.
- [o] is a share button, like the PS4 share button
- 32 GB of storage. No word on that being upgradable (via an SD slot, or in premium editions). The dock does have USB ports though.
- If 32 GB is true, it tells us a few things. It confirms the importance of digital distribution (enough space for 7 games that fit on a DVD).
- It also may confirm the pricing is going to be over $200, probably $299. If a device exits for $249, given other products on the market, it will not likely have more than 16 GB of internal storage.
- That said, there's rumblings that NVidia may be taking an initial loss on the system, just to finally cement them as part of a real game console. That said, it's easy to forget the original Xbox had an NVidia GPU, as did the PlayStation 3, but this was before the NVidia Tegra, and they've been struggling ever since (NVidia Shield never really took off).
- It underclocks itself when mobile. This is potentially great news long term, as it means developers need to handle a floating framerate from day 1. That also means it's possible to do a hardware refresh with faster functionally compatible hardware, and *most* software could actually end up running better.
- While it's not clear what Tegra will be in the final device, we know at a minimum it'll perform as well as a Tegra X1. Ideally it should be something based on NVidia's Pascal architecture, but the X1 is the prior gen Maxwell architecture. Still pretty damn good, but more is always better.
- i.e. the NVidia Shield TV, with controller, is a reasonable drop-in dummy system for the Nintendo Switch. You will get performance on par, or better on the Switch. As of February, it has supported Vulkan.
- NVidia is handling a significant part of the internal software. My guess: development tools, and backend OS (some Linux or BSD kernel).
- I've used their Tegra GPU profiler, and it's fantastic. The best OpenGL profiler I've ever used.
- Nintendo joined the Khronos group last year, right as the Vulkan API was starting to materialize. That and NVidia's involvment makes a pretty strong case for either Vulkan or OpenGL ES (3.x) support, or both.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Point being you can target a very reasonable spec'd device, and get a lead before the vast majority of devs get access to kits, by keeping a few things in mind.

Is Nintendo (as a platform) even profitable for indies these days? What's the share you can grab for people who *only* have a Nintendo console?

These days it seems like I can get every indie game on any platform I want. :]_________________loomsoft :]

DiabloContributorJoined: 19 Nov 2015
Posts: 388
Location: :( :(

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 6:41 am Post subject:

What will the price be. I'm pessimistic that it'll be "aggressively low," if no other reason, having the tablet thing going on presumably offsets any savings they get from using "not as good as ps4 but cheaper" hardware. It would be nice if they offered a cheaper model that didn't come with the tablet stuff, you wouldn't be able to take it on the go obviously, but for users who intend to use it solely as a home console, it would save some money.

None of the gameplay they showed on the Switch was actually from gameplay on the Switch._________________My Blog | I take steroids for my bad knee. Now I can kick a smart car across the Walmart parking lot![/size]

SiroccoModeratorJoined: 19 Aug 2005
Posts: 9470
Location: Not Finland

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 5:41 am Post subject:

I was disappointed they rolled back their motion control initiative with WiiU. I'd rather have seen them double-down and make it more user-friendly and provide bullet-proof libs for developers to make motion detection simpler and reliable.

Some games got it right. Others had trouble detecting permutations of basic motions (arm twisting during swing, for example, or left-handed motions), and many others just gave up and instituted waggle (i.e. all axes go berserk = we have motion).

When it worked it was magnificent. And now with VR becoming a looming inevitability, getting the jump on good motion controls would have given Nintendo a leg up on other entities. But that's all hindsight sitting at the end of 2016._________________NoOP / Reyn Time -- The $ is screwing everyone these days. (0xDB)

DiabloContributorJoined: 19 Nov 2015
Posts: 388
Location: :( :(

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 8:25 am Post subject:

If you can suffer through the artificiality, there's a little bit of gameplay footage of the Switch from one of the late night shows. You have to skip about halfway through, the first half is for an endless runner that looks totally harmless, if not equally "meh" which will probably sell for 99 cents and be worth about as much. The Switch part has about a minute of simple Zelda gameplay. Actually, the way they immediately talk about how "huge" the world is kind of triggers me, I've seen a few too many "the largest version of our franchise yet" turn into 6 hour playthroughs. I'm not realllly worried about that with Zelda though, because you can always count on at least one stupidly hard dungeon that takes 6 hours on its own, of wandering around before looking up the answer on youtube. :)

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:22 pm Post subject:

Less than 24 hours left until Nintendo's Switch announcement event, streamed live (?) from Japan.

11 PM ET, 8 PM PT.

Plus there are a bunch of hands-on events taking place this weekend, so a whole bunch of game footage and news is going to pop up_________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

Edit: Forgot to mention that the whole "region-free" thing is a plus. 'Bout damn time!

Edit2: New

Xenoblade

is interesting, but after how shitty XCX turned out I'm not getting excited yet. And bringing motion controls back is good, in general, but developers won't touch it because it's too much work to get right._________________NoOP / Reyn Time -- The $ is screwing everyone these days. (0xDB)

Edited by Sirocco on Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:12 am; edited 3 times

DiabloContributorJoined: 19 Nov 2015
Posts: 388
Location: :( :(

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:01 am Post subject:

300USD for this, I'm not sure about that. I heard it's 400 for CANADIANS. Damn. I haven't seen the video yet for Mario, it's supposed to be kinda like Mario 64 which is great, but it doesn't come out until end of the year, which isn't great, and also assumes no release delay.

Is it true they are joining the "let's make people pay to play online" party?

Can anyone dump a bullet list here? Don't want to watch a video to get the main points. :]_________________loomsoft :]

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2017 1:22 pm Post subject:

Yeah, $400 in Canada, but our dollar is shit right now ($300 USD = ~$396 CAD).

- March 3rd (like a month and a half away)
- Preorders already sold out. ;)
- designed as a combination of "all" from every nintendo console. It's not dual screen, but everything else is basically covered.
- a home game console that's easy to take 'to go'
- Actually 3 play modes:
--- TV
--- Tabletop (detatch Joycons and use kickstand)
--- Portable mode (attach joycons)
- 2.5-6 hours of battery life (depends on the game. Zelda clocks about 3 hours)
- By design, you always have 2 viable controllers (i.e. the Joycon's).
- Capacitive Touch Screen (though it's more a convenience feature, and never required)
- Wrist straps on Joycons make the L/R buttons easier to press, for those of us with giant hands
- what looks like good motion controls, but positional tracking is probably a no-go (more relying on thrusting, gesturing, tilting)
- Advanced haptics they're calling "HD Rumble". Apparently detailed enough to gesture/feel when ice cubes are in a glass, or when water is being poured.
- Pro Controller has motion sensors too (making it viable for Splatoon 2)
- New Metroid Game (just kidding, I wanted to see if you were paying attention)
- Paid online service is coming. Free Virtual Console 'rental' every month, and online play+voice chat.
- Like 3 games of merit for launch (Zelda, 2 player party game called "1 2 Switch", Bomberman).
- Relatively thin game lineup, but I like what I saw (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, Super Mario Odyssey). Expect more at E3.
- a Disgaea 5 port. <3
- Games and Accessories 'feel' expensive.
- 32 GB internal storage, with support for a MicroSDXC up to 256 GB (good enough IMO)
- IMO, I'd recommend going physical for single player games (because of size), and digital for any multiplayer/party games.
- I wont be able to do it justice, but it actually seems a nice system to have

Go watch some game trailers if you're lacking the patience to watch the presentation.

It's always about the games. And these typically 'home console' games are now portable.

I technically have 2 Nintendo Switches on Preorder (one is a backup), as I'm actually away on Launch day (San Francisco for GDC)._________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2017 1:49 pm Post subject:

I'm actually quite happy with the Nintendo Switch concept.

In time I'll get my good games (Monster Hunter), but there was a certain awkwardness to the Wii U's ability to be a party game system. The Nintendo Switch, literally just pull it out of the dock and you can play a game w/o even turning on the TV.

Party Games

Your "Wii Sports" of this generation. Not that compelling, but probably good for some laughs

Bomberman. Nuff said. I wish the in game art was more flat though. Bring extra controllers.

There's your Tetris. It's also Puyo Pop (and a wacky mashup mode), but more importantly you have a Tetris handy. Play it solo, or with 3 friends (if you have extra controllers). I'm not entirely sure if this is the case, but if there's an 'arcade' mode that lets every player just play whatever they want (non versus), that might be cool too.

Versus Games
Advanced party games (basically).

Mario Kart 8, w/ battle mode. Can split screen (I think).

I liked the original. A very oddball FPS. I'm super curious what this is like with friends in RL.

Street Fighter 2, yo. A fairly definitive edition too. Play with original graphics or HD graphics, and the Switch includes 2 controllers (the joycons), so it's a perfect break-out game.

IMO I think this is where the machine is going to shine. With games that you can decide to play on a whim. But it's totally capable of "real" games too.

I'm totally bringing the Switch with me whenever I travel or go to a show/convention. It'll be a great system for that._________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar